Religioning it up

While researching polling numbers yesterday, I discovered that one of my recent stories had made it to the website of one of my most relied upon sources -- the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. Does that mean I've made it?

The story was one I'd written last fall -- on how Muslim couples grapple with infertility -- that finally saw the light of day. I'm always happy when a story gets out there, but especially so with this one. It was an incredible honor to be welcomed into Dilnaz's life, and after our chat I got several emails from other Muslim women who told me they were grappling with infertility and were eager to read the story.

Meanwhile, the reporting continues on Latinos and faith. My first material from the New Mexico trip went up this morning, and a few days earlier I wrote a quick story about the Catholic Church's efforts to hold on to Latinos. Read away!

Meet my mentors

In September my swashbuckling takes a national security turn. Check it out -- this morning NPR interviewed the two veteran reporters at the helm of my fall project about the recent Pentagon leaks. Could this be me in 20 years?

No hope of a straight face

As soon as I landed in Albuquerque, I remembered why the world's religions all started in the desert. How can your thoughts be anything but heavenward when there's so very much sky?

Luckily, I was in town for a pensive sort of story -- a profile of a young Pentecostal pastor of a Hispanic megachurch.

There ended up being no time for the tram up Sandia Peak nor for a trip to the bright colors of Santa Fe, nor even for green chile enchiladas in Old Town...but as it turned out, four days with Pastor Tre proved more than adventureous enough. I crouched on the floor with my microphone during his meeting with an African American evangelical bishop; I flipped through paperwork as he led the school board meeting of a local charter school -- and prepared to hit the floor when gunshots were fired outside the school; I tickled a baby at his goddaughter's birthday picnic; I watched for jackrabbits while we talked politics in a park overlooking the city; but most of all, I grinned for five straight services on Sunday as I watched thousands of people give new meaning to the word "rejoice."

I don't care what your spiritual beliefs are, I can't see how anyone wouldn't want part in this.

The first service was in English, which was lucky for me since I got to get my bearings before the big 11AM Spanish service. I'd never been to an Assemblies of God church before, and frankly, it was pretty low-key compared to what I expected. The audience stood during the opening music. People swayed and lifed their arms to the sky, but it wasn't any different than some of the other youth-focused Christian services I'd been to.

I'd been looking forward to the speaking in tongues, but even that was low-key. It came at the end of the service when Pastor Ruben asked the youth to come forward -- they're preparing for a trip to a national convention -- and had the congregation place hands on them. There were quiet murmurings throughout the crowd, which at first I thought was just everyone praying quietly under their breathe. Even when I realized what was happening, it wasn't anything wild, just soft personal prayers.

Then came the 11AM service. The sanctuary's 1,400 seats were filled and I was strategically positioned halfway up an aisle with my marantz when the music started.

My oh my, I know I'm a writer, but there are not words.

Somewhere in the middle of the music, as the bright mess of a crowd was gasping and undulating, the man at the end of the row behind me came leaping forward up the aisle. His eyes were closed and I haven't a clue how he avoided knocking me over. Other people poured forward. Choir members came off the stage and down to the front. At once, there were 1,400 intensely personal experiences and one communal event. I know I'm a reporter, but there was no way to stay stoic through this. And really -- how well can you report on it if you don't let yourself feel it?

After that, I think Pastor Tre and I both loosened up. For all of his maturity and poise, he's young and I think the mic freaked him out a little. And I just didn't have enough experience with it to know how to put him at ease. So, for the 7PM youth service I put it away and we sat on a folding table in the back and chatted -- about the families who are leaving Arizona and finding their way to the church, about missionaries and vegetarianism and dred-locked proponents of the New Monasticism. I thought about taking it out when the crew moved to a local sub restaurant after the service, but opted instead to leave it in its bag and join in the kids' pretend spitball game.

I've got my douts about some of the audio I got, but boy oh boy, I've got a story.

Baby shower in Baghdad

After a long weekend spent agonizing over a (non-journalism) job offer from an old boss, I awoke to this story about female war correspondents on NPR. By all practical accounts, I'm an idiot for turning the job down, but oh, I'm not ready to give up on swashbuckling yet!

Back with a bang

Oh, how I have been neglecting the blog!

Swashbuckling has taken a different turn here in DC. Linen shirts and leather satchels have been traded in for suits and heels. Nevertheless, the swashbuckling continues. I'll catch up on a few good adventure stories soon, but in the meantime, the one from yesterday.

After 8 months of negotiations, and really decades worth of work, Sens. Kerry and Lieberman announced their much-awaited energy bill yesterday, and guess who got to be there (albeit smushed between a mult-box, a video camera and way too many people for the Senate Foreign Relations room).

It's been interesting to watch the mix of supporters shift. After K & L each spoke, the first person to take the podium was retired Admiral William Fallon. Supporters of emissions-capping legislation have been taking the national security tack more and more frequently lately -- heading to the conference I got stuck behind a group of more than 60 vets who were there to lend their support (watch for a story on this soon). Other leaders at the dais yesterday included USCAP heavyweights, evangelical minister Joel Hunter, and of course the usual enviros.

Here's my story for AOL's PoliticsDaily -- enjoy!

A little bit itchy

Continuing my reporting on Bhutanese refugees, tonight I went to a health event in Rogers Park. What I knew was that the health promoter I'm profiling was giving a talk. What I didn't know was that the event was called because the refugees' building had bedbugs.

Did you know that everybody -- no matter their race, creed, language or religion -- makes the same disgusted look when squinting through a magnifying glass at a plastic baggie full of dead bedbugs?

We may all taste the same to the little devils, but we're not all equally vulnerable. These folks don't have the money to run their clothes through the dryer (the first step in battling the bugs), let alone to buy the plastic mattress covers and caulking equipment that health officials recommend.

Apparently a number of apartments in that building are infested, and now I'm trying to figure out how to bake my clothes (yes, oven, low temperature kills 'em, too) and how to make my skin stop crawling.

Not exactly what I had in mind when I set out to swashbuckle...

Lessons in generosity

That old saying -- that those who have the least are the ones who give the most -- it never ceases to amaze me how true it is.

I spent the better part of this afternoon with a refugee family who, after being driven from their home in the south of Bhutan in the early 1990s, spent nearly two decades living in a bamboo hut with a plastic and thatch roof in a Nepalese refugee camp.

They arrived in Chicago with four bags between the five of them, stuffed with clothes and paperwork and a few pieces of jewelry. Now they live in a brown brick building in the black hat section of Devon. The walls are bare and the living room holds two twin beds. The walk up three flights of twisting stairs left me winded, though the 86-year-old grandpa glides up them with an ease unimaginable for a man with an inhaler and a walker.

In the early 1990s, the Bhutanese government began a multi-pronged campaign against its citizens of Nepali origin, many of whom had been settled in the south of the country for several generations. The government instituted a national dress code, burned books written in Nepali and became pickier and pickier about citizenship papers. Then, they began direct pressure. Heads of the family were called in to government offices and presented with paperwork in a language that they couldn't read. When they signed it, they relinquished rights to their land and declared they were leaving the country by their own choice. Those who didn't sign were threatened. Some were tortured.

That 86-year-old stair-climbing grandpa watched the army burn his house and farm -- the only home he'd ever known.

How do you ask someone to tell you about an experience like that? I started slowly, asking about specific memories and pointing out what few objects were around the room. When I asked about food, they called their 18-year-old daughter and before I knew it she was serving us the most amazing dumplings. I asked about the parents' wedding and they brought out pictures tucked inside a hand-me-down American children's book. I complimented the mother's necklace and they brought me a beautiful hand-beaded necklace and put it around my neck.

Really, what can you possibly say to that?